


Easy the Descent

by rosekay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dealfic, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Season/Series 02, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-S2 finale. Sam and Dean in the Underworld with prices to pay and offers to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy the Descent

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in 2007.

*

When he sees Dean, the relief is so thick in his throat, he barely forces the name past his lips.

Sam's tired, the razor glare weariness of being on alert for days, shot through with the adrenaline of taking down Jake, every bruise tender beneath the heat of his skin.

He dimly hears Dean's voice, rough and notched into panic, watches Dean's legs pump as he gets closer, almost swallowed by the clouds raging above him. Cold Oaks feels outside of time, a wild and sharp edged part of the country frozen forever by the rules of a different world and memories that won't leave. The mud seems to ripple beneath them, every wooden creak ready to groan its way forward, the sky gray and awful above, a roiling mass streaked with anemic yellow light that looks evil through his blinking eyes. By then, he's on his knees, pain in his back, head spinning. It seems he only closes his eyes for a second, but he opens them -

 

*

\- to a darkness, less brilliant and more -

*

A dog barks somewhere, teeth gnashing, spittle flying, but it's faint, somewhere beyond him. It echoes, like it's rippling over -

Water, all around him. A lake. A river. Glass black and smooth with something moving right beneath it. He can almost see the distant shore, as if it's right in front of him, though sometimes it slides so far out of view he might as well be looking across an ocean.

"No coin. Not that that matters these days."

Sam turns slowly, through thick breaths and black water in the air, through voices and plain silence. His whole body aches, only his back a numb, frightening patch along his spine. There is an old man standing on the shore, gnarled forehead toppled by years or something else, thick lips and ears that sprout tufted hair. His neck is hidden by a ragged scarf, and the rest of him arrayed in clothing that might have gotten him a few coins and plenty of disapproving looks on any city corner. His voice is impossibly smooth, not old at all, but very wry. The sound of metal clinking sounds from a pouch around his waist. That too echoes over the water, which ripples silently.

There's a sharp pain near his head, but the old man's hand is already drawing away, a tuft of hair feathering against his wood gnarled fingers. Sam claps a head to his temple on instinct, hurt and surprised.

"This'll do."

Grin full of gold and pearls.

There's something sinking in Sam's stomach, heavy and awful, but he's been fast all his life, depended on it, so his hand closes on the cold wrist.

"Wait."

The old man looks back at him, a terribly blank expression. The boat is already bobbing in the water behind him, rearing against the gray sky.

His voice is shaking, his whole body wracked in shivers.

"No payment, no passage right?"

The old man looks down at the tuft of hair, Sam's hair, brown and limp in the half light. He moves quickly, their fingers slipping together - another shiver - and the hair is in his pocket, safe, nothing paid.

"I can take more, or something else." He cocks his head. "What are you getting at, boy? This isn't _life_ you're asking for - it's being trapped here."

"Not dead, though, right?"

He's too tired to hide the naked hope in his voice. His clothes don't feel real. The land doesn't feel real, not even his own skin, only purpose.

"Dead," says the old man, and he spits, nothing landing on the ground, "in all the ways that matter."

His hand rests against Sam's pocket, and his eyes soften just a fraction, or maybe that's just Sam's imagination.

"Let him go, boy."

His head jerks up. He's taller, _taller_ than the ferryman, whose hand already holds the oar.

"I can't."

The old man turns his back, tossing a look at Sam, unreadable.

"Better luck bargaining on the other side anyway."

The hair's gone.

*

Dark corridors and men that hang from trees. Sam wonders if he'll see his father here.

"You won't."

The throne is a plain one, but it's still a throne. She's beautiful, milky skin and hair that could be corn silk or sable, dark eyes that sink down. There's metal on her breath and the faint scent of flowers, of laughter, beneath it.

"You've come to bargain, Samuel."

Curve of breasts and length of hair, husband in her eyes, mother in her mouth, pink and spring soft.

He nods, still cold, gathering his arms around himself.

"Let me go back. My brother, he - "

"Is alone?"

She smiles.

" - he's gonna figure something out," Sam finishes, mouth tight. His voice echoes in the chamber. There are men who walk past, deep set eyes and death wounds, regrets sown into every skin. He made his way past a forest where a woman wept, one who'd died in fire, alone. He can't stay. He needs -

"Are you that sure?"

She slides off the throne onto the packed earth ground. She's tall, as tall as Dean, whose features Sam knows intimately at this distance.

"Some food?"

She smiles as if she knows her own daring, the pomegranate lush and gleaming like a jewel in her pale hands. He suddenly feels his hunger, the emptiness that's lingered since he woke up, sees it in every near translucent little kernel, flush of blood and life, barely holding the juice in. She lets her fingers wiggle a little, so they roll over each other, the scent wafting over him, a few falling to burst on the ground, sweet and sharp. He swallows.

"I'm not stupid."

"My mother tried for me once, and her bargain wasn't so sweet in the end. What makes you think your brother will do any better?"

Her lips are full of regret, bitter when she touches them to his, gently.

"Tell me."

*

Sam tells her about his first memory, looking up at Dean. About sharing food, asking about their father, knocking elbows, shoulders together. About knowing Dean's weak side on a punch, feeling the gulf of their mother together. Learning to drive, Dean's hand on his wrist, swearing at him. His first porn, his first kiss, his first girl, and his brother's stupid instructions reeling in his head with each milestone. He tells her that Dean curls in on people when he's asleep, that he likes his beer cheap, but he'll drink all the imported crap that Sam buys him. Tells her that his brother is crass, an asshole with people, that his brother is a good man. The two of them against the storm, Sam tired after unpacking his life into an empty room, half expecting Dean to hand him the last box. Sharp realization before every war, nerves strung up, only steady eyes to hold him, and lazy assurance when there was a road ahead, punches, swearing, the small angers of bad music, discarded wrappers and that tone of voice. Dying and hurting and swallowing his own blood, resting his head on Dean's shoulder, in Dean's hands, years' worth of bruises, aches, missed expectations to soothe. He tells her how his brother's pulse feels flying beneath his own palm, the thrill of being alive each time. About knowing a person so thoroughly it's hard to know where you end and he begins sometimes, even when there are thousands of miles and acres of opinion between you, knowing voice and skin and stupid mistakes, faults and unguarded smiles, waking grunts and dying breaths.

It spills out of him until he's sure his naked ribs are sprawled on her floor, nothing left in him to tell, his voice hoarse. He's on his knees again, retching everything before him, when her cool hand tilts his face up. The pomegranate seeds are scattered behind her, the throne gone.

"Better than music, Samuel, I think - "

She pauses, something like surprise on her face.

"You're too late. Deal's already done."

Sam whips his head up, startled, bitter tears drying on his cheeks.

She looks straight at him.

"I would have. Maybe I'll see you again."

Someone else is there, back turned. Broad shoulders and bowed head. Sam can't breathe, cold and drained.

"Dean?"

He feels like a child walking towards his brother, stumbling on tired legs and empty torso. Dean glows in the half light, skin so beautifully alive with warmth, the edge of his face gilded like a bust he's so still.

"He can't look at you," she tells him. "He can't look back."

So Sam wraps his arms around his brother from behind, pressed against his heartbeat, the warmth of skin through the shirt, his hands feeling whole skin, whole flesh, that flying pulse. The thrill of being alive. And Dean, Dean slides one hand back. One squeeze around Sam's even as he doesn't move any other muscles. It means assurance, means trust me, means how'd you get yourself killed, you little bitch?

"Sealed," Persephone says, "with a kiss."

Sam breathes into the back of his brother's neck, breathes in the scent of a world above, of everything he poured out of himself a moment ago.

He follows Dean into the darkness.

*

It seems he only closes his eyes for a second, but he opens them to an empty room, an ache in his back.

The mirror gives him a bruise, but no answers. The door creaks open.

"Sammy?"

*


End file.
